This Nightsleeper episode 1 recap contains spoilers... Fasten your seat belts and prepare for a white knuckle ride when you step aboard the runaway train at the center of this nerve-jangling BBC One thriller.
Set in real-time, the six-part story begins when off-duty cop Joe Roag (Peaky Blinders star Joe Cole) takes his seat on The Heart of Britain, an overnight service between Glasgow and London.
However, before he and the other passengers are able to get comfortable, the train is hijacked — or "hackjacked" — by a group of cyber terrorists who hold them all, hostage, as they hurtle across the country.
Luckily, at the National Cyber Security Centre in London, Acting Technical Director Abby Aysgarth (Alexandra Roach, No Offence) and her team are working to try and get on top of the situation. Here's how the first episode played out...
Who is the woman with the pram?
It's 11.45 pm and Joe Roag crosses the deserted ticket hall of Glasgow station to board the night sleeper service to London Euston, yet while he's having his tickets checked on the platform, a man steals the bag of a woman pushing a pram and makes a run for it. Being the good guy he is, Joe joins the chase down the length of the train, introducing us to a host of characters who will probably go on to play big parts in the story.
Upon cornering the thief, Joe reveals he's a police officer and manages to grab the bag back, although the mysterious assailant escapes. After getting her back bag, the lady with the pram leaves promptly, ditching the pram and bag outside, before jumping into a car with the thief. It seems the whole thing was a ruse to distract the train’s staff and the police.
Unaware of these strange goings-on, the train soon departs with Joe enjoying applause from his fellow passengers and swigging champagne in the Club Lounge. Yet he can’t get too comfortable, because the train manager soon discovers what appears to be a bomb in his office. He calls the driver, yet gets no response.
Joe comes to take a look at the device and it seems whoever planted the device while they were chasing the lads on the platform, also disabled the train’s CCTV. "When we were first about to set off I checked the tickets of everyone who came on board, there was no one on the train who shouldn’t have been," says the train manager. "Anyone could have got on after."
However it seems whoever planted the device and disabled the CCTV, also disrupted the trains wifi and phone coverage (how could they tell tbh?) so no one on the train can contact the outside world. Well, no one apart from a passenger who works on an oil rig and has a satellite phone. Thank god for the fossil fuel industry.
Why is Joe wanted by the authorities?
Meanwhile, Abby Aysgarth and her friend are about to depart for a holiday in Morocco, when she gets a call from her colleague at the National Cyber Security Team, who advises her that one of the UK’s biggest anti-virus firms has a virus. It's a problem that could affect some very big firms and "critical infrastructure". “Set up the incident room, I am on my way!” says Abby, to her mate’s frustration.
As she travels back to London, the team connects Abby with Joe, who explains the situation on the train. She soon realizes the critical infrastructure affected by the virus is the train network and the problem is far larger than anyone on her Cyber Security Team realize. Eeep!
Abby starts to gather information from Joe and soon realizes he’s discovered a hacking device, which means someone has taken control of the train. She tells Saj (Parth Thakerer) at NCST HQ to try and evacuate everyone on the train when it stops at Motherwell and deploys a Cyber Security Team, yet she’s also building a bit of rapport with Joe, which is impressive considering the dire circumstances.
However when Joe explains the co-ordinated distraction that took place before the device was planted and Abby hears how the UK Rail’s cyber security team have been taken out, she wonders if she should bring her predecessor "Pev" back in. "He literally wrote the book on this!" says Abby, yet it seems many people at NCST, including Director General Nicola Miller (Pamela Nomvete) don’t want Paul Peverill (David Threlfall) back!
"This is why we exist Abby" Miller says, hinting that Abby could become Technical Director of NSCS full-time if she handles this crisis well. Although she tells her not to call her predecessor, Paul Peverill, under any circumstances. Unfortunately, she already has!
Back on the train, Joe and the train manager are visited by Rachel Li (Katie Leung), a lifestyle trains reporter, and a woman who seems remarkably calm despite losing her child. But Joe soon has other problems when some of his fellow passengers discover he's no longer a DI and there’s an Interpol Red Alert on him, as he ‘disappeared’ during an investigation last year. Why is Joe wanted by the authorities and what did he do?
Why did the Transport Secretary go viral?
Joe manages to hide before the train stops at Motherwell and the police begin searching for him, while evacuating the rest of the train. Yet one of the people on the train is the missing Transport Secretary, who’s reluctant to leave her room and be pictured on the platform, as she fears going viral "again". But why did she go viral the first time? Meanwhile, the rail network is in meltdown, so she’s probably wise to keep a low profile.
The evacuation is a complete mess, with various people reluctant to leave the train, however, during all the commotion the train manager speaks to the driver, who reveals that he’s spoken to the Network HQ twice. Yet with all comms down since Glasgow, that’s impossible. The group who’ve taken control of the train have clearly been posing as the authorities...
While everyone else leaves the train, Joe is holed up with the missing boy, Mouse, in a luggage compartment, while his mother is frantically searching for him on the platform. He emerges when the police arrive, but doesn’t give Joe away.
However he doesn’t make it off the train before it departs and he’s not the only one trapped on board, with Joe, Rachel Li, the Transport Secretary and a couple of others still on board as it pulls out of the station, with the gobsmacked driver left on the platform.
Meanwhile, Abby has made it to Victoria Station, where a disconcerting message begins flashing up on the departures board. It reads "My name is the driver. Tonight I am in control". But who is the driver?
On the train, Joe uses the satellite phone to call Abby. offering his help as long as she helps him. "How can I trust you?" she asks, to which he replies "What else you got?" It’s a fair point.
